One alternative would be to cycle along the Olympic Greenway - a traffic free route. Except that as one person points out that doesn't really work either. If you read the comments to that BBC piece, you'll see this:

Specifically, this is what the cycling Greenway gates look like in action:

So, fine, you get a traffic-free route. But every few hundred metres, you have to stop, get off your cycle, and clamber over, under, around a piece of torture equipment.

In no other country have I ever seen a device like this. But in the UK, if you are a person in a motor vehicle you get priority and fast-moving roads. If you're a person on a cycle, you are expected to get off, clamber around some pathetic piece of ironwork, wait for all the nice people in their motor cars, cross the road, clamber around another pathetic piece of ironwork, continue on your way.

So, you're either forced to cycle along motorways or discouraged even from the off-road routes.

It's pathetic, frankly.

But it's very encouraging to see the mainstream media beginning to realise what an utter farce the Mayor's cycling revolution really is.

That's complete rubbish. The Blackfriars junction, like the junctions to the Olympics, are designed to allow only the fast, the brave and the slightly reckless to cycle on London's roads. The majority of Londoners aren't cyclists. But a lot of them want to be able to cycle here. But not in conditions like this. And not if TfL persists in thinking that junctions like Blackfriars 'work successfully' for cycling.

TfL's defiinition of 'successful cycling' seems to me to mean making cycling a fringe activity for a very small percentage of Londoners.

Transport for London is essentially sticking two fingers up at people who would like to cycle in London. And I'm delighted that the Guardian and the Telegraph are sensing just how underwhelming the Mayor's cycling revolution really is. I wonder if the BBC might catch up some day soon?